Pages

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

Café Explorer │ Earth To Table

After my trip to Bali where I experienced a vegan restaurant for the first time I’m now really keen to try new vegan dishes!! I always assumed vegan food would be really boring but honestly that is not the case at all! In fact vegan food sometimes has more flavour because there is no overpowering flavour of meat and artificial flavouring. Also there is something wholesome about eating vegan food!

So in order to try some vegan food in Sydney my friend Mark and I visited Eart To Table café in Bondi Junction which is actually the same brand of vegan as the restaurant in Bali!! I was so excited to try this place because it means I finally cross one place off my Bucket list!

♣

Anyways on to the food!

My MOCHA

As with every other café explorer post I’ve ever written I got a MOCHA! The one at Earth to Table was espresso and raw cacao with steamed almond milk. Which is why it wasn’t as sweet as what I’m used to but I like how the coffee only had a hint of sweetness and not too much!

Mark decided to try the Give Me a Sparkle tonic which had the champagne of life, kefir probiotic in ginger which was …. Interesting! I also tried a tonic when I was in Bali and to be honest I’m not a fan of the taste of it but somehow I think it’ll be really good for you!

Kefir is a fermented milk drink made from fermented kefir grains and research has shown it improves lactose digestion and helps overall digestion because it contains micro-organisms that can colonise and protect the intestine again disease causing bacteria! Kefir is what gives this tonic a slightly sour taste which can really surprise you.

Ginger is another vegetable that is said to aid digestion, increase blood flow and is really popular with Asian mothers (at least mine loves it). But again it has a very particular taste and combined with kefir it was an interesting taste. IT’S GOOD FOR YOU!

Give me a HIGH!

The third drink is called Give Me a High! Appropriately named! It was a frosty raw cacao-nut mylk with espresso and it WAS DELICIOUS! The drink was moderately sweet with a nice frosty top layer – definitely recommend trying it out!

Pesto Pasta!

For lunch I ordered the pesto pasta which was zucchini linguini with spinach and rocket pesto served in a lovely stack! It was delicious!! Very light yet still incredibly hearty and full of freshness and flavour! Vegan pasta definitely met my expectations!

MUSHROOM! NOMNOM SHROOM

Mark ordered the special dish for the day and it a mushroom based dish but to be honest I didn’t write down exactly what the waitress said about it. So I did some research and found out that it's -Raw marinated mushroom flats served with almond and sunflower seed bread with braised spinach and bernaise style sauce.

The mushroom was cooked very different from how I typically eat mushroom (in soups normally) and it was cooked til tenderness. It almost reminded me to tender meat – ALMOST!

Peach and Raspberry Cheesecake!

THE CHEESECAKE! OMG! Actually the best cheesecake! Sweet but not too sweet and since it’s a vegan café there was no cheese in the actual cheesecake which may be disappointing for some people but it’s actually good for me since I am not a big fan of cheese. I REALLY WANT TO TRY MORE FLAVOURS OF CHEESECAKES! THEY HAVE SO MANY!! Vegan desserts!!!

Click Read more for the FULL REVIEW!

Location: ★★★☆☆

It’s not located in the heart of the city which for those city dwellers (like myself) it’s definitely a little bit more inconvenient but the train trip to Bondi is literally only 10-15 minutes plus a very short walk to the café! It’s definitely not difficult to get to!

Menu: ★★★★☆

The menu was very extensive full of different types of drinks and food options! I really want to try some of their other dishes especially the quiche and the DESSERTS!! There are also a lot of other desserts options that are not even on the menu so don’t forget to check out their dessert section!

THE MENU!

Taste: ★★★★☆

DELICIOUS! Really flavoursome food that feels light and doesn’t give you the greasy and bloated feeling! And the dessert really in the BOMB! Highly recommend trying it out!

Price: ★★★☆☆

Not the cheapest café since it is vegan and any type of specialty cafes tend to be more on the expensive side of things. But I think it’s definitely worth the price you pay for the food! I would buy the money especially for the cheesecake! Won’t recommend it for really povo university students but I would recommend it for anyone wanting to try something new!

Overall: ★★★★☆

It was overall a really good experience! There’s not a lot of room in the café so there was a bit of wait getting a table but it wasn’t too bad. And the service was excellent! They were very helpful and the waitress was very patient! Even though it took me SO LONG to figure out what to order!

Tips for eating there:

Go with an open mind to try out vegan food! THERE IS NO MEAT OR CHEESE OK?

Try the cheesecake. NO JUST TRY IT OK?

Bring some cheesecake home for mum. At least that’s my tip for myself!